NEW ORLEANS FESTIVALS - Jazz Fest Features

ROCK & BLUES - Chris Thomas King

Chris Thomas King is at a crossroads in the blues. No blues artist straddles the past and future of blues quite like him "I was the last blues artist of the 20th century discovered by a folklorist," he says.

The son of Baton Rouge blues legend Tabby Thomas, King learned a variety of instruments while hanging out in his father's club, Tabby's Blues Box. In his early teens, he was sitting in with blues greats. Folklorist Nick Spitzer heard him play and told Arhoolie Records that he was the future of the blues.

In 1986, King put out his first album and then jumped to Warner Brothers. Artistic differences over the direction of the blues led King to walk away from the deal to pursue his vision, incorporating sampling, hip hop, rapping and urban sounds. Though King's 1992 release 21st Century Blues From the Hood was a defining point personally, the fusion was ahead of its time. Unable to get out of a contract, King went to Europe where he started out the hard way, sleeping on park benches.

By the late '90s, King realized his early experiments were being tried by other artists, played on the radio and pushed by labels back home. King returned and continued to record. A break came by way of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, in which he played Tommy Johnson. The soundtrack gave him the means to launch his own label. The debut release Dirty South Hip Hop Blues put King back in the forefront.

"My music has always been edgy. Always street," he says. While many have not embraced the urban directions, King says the culture of the blues is still in touch with that experience.

"I'm touring and making hip-hop blues records," he says. "I am the bridge that brought blues back to a young urban base."